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US cancels Taliban talks over reversal on girls’ education

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Provided by DW: The Taliban ordered girls' secondary schools in Afghanistan to close on March 23, just hours after they reopened

The United States has announced that it has canceled planned talks with the Taliban after the rulers of Afghanistan made a U-turn on the topic of girls’ education, shuttering girls out of middle and high schools hours after doors were opened.

“We have canceled some of our engagements, including planned meetings in Doha around the Doha Forum, and have made clear that we see this decision as a potential turning point in our engagement,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said.

Women’s rights and education of girls were major causes for concern when the Taliban seized power amidst a hurried withdrawal of international forces in Afghanistan. After months of uncertainty, the Education Ministry last week announced it would open schools for all students, including girls, beginning Wednesday.

Schools closed abruptly

Hours after classes began, the ministry posted a new notice: “We inform all girls high schools and those schools that are having female students above class six that they are off until the next order.”

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The announcement was met with disappointment from girls who were turned away from schools and condemnation from international powers, who have been lobbying for women’s rights under the Taliban regime.

“This decision by the Taliban, if it is not swiftly reversed, will profoundly harm the Afghan people, the country’s prospects for economic growth, and the Taliban’s ambition to improve their relations with the international community,” Porter told reporters.

“We also stand with Afghan girls and their families, who see education as a path to realizing the full potential of Afghanistan’s society and economy,” she added.

Female foreign ministers condemn move

A group of female foreign ministers from 16 countries around the world also expressed their disappointment in a joint statement on Friday.

“As women and as foreign ministers, we are deeply disappointed and concerned that girls in Afghanistan are being denied access to secondary schools this spring,” the foreign ministers of Albania, Andorra, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Kosovo, Malawi, Mongolia, New Zealand, Sweden, Tonga and Britain said.

They said the decision “is particularly disturbing as we repeatedly heard their commitments to open all schools for all children.”

“We call upon the Taliban to reverse their recent decision and to grant equal access to all levels of education, in all provinces of the country,” they added.

The UN Security Council also held a closed-door discussion on the issue.

The Taliban had promised a softer rule when they returned to power last year, claiming they respect women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic sharia law. They also said girls would be allowed to study till university.

However, the Islamist group has imposed a range of restrictions on women, more or less banning them from government jobs, policing what they wear, and keeping them from traveling out of their cities alone.

DW

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Google blocks 5.5 billion adverts, suspends 12.7 million accounts

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Google blocks 5.5 billion adverts, suspends 12.7 million accounts

Google says it has blocked over 5.5 billion adverts and suspended 12.7 million others for violating its policies.

The search engine giant also said in a statement on Wednesday that it had removed adverts from over 2.1 billion pages.

“Billions of people around the world rely on Google products to provide relevant and trustworthy information, including ads. That’s why we have thousands of people working around the clock to safeguard the digital advertising ecosystem.

“Today, we are releasing our annual Ads Safety Report to share the progress we’ve made in enforcing our advertiser and publisher policies and to hold ourselves accountable in our work of maintaining a healthy ad-supported internet,” it said.

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In 2023, it said scams and fraud across all online platforms were on the rise.

It added, “Bad actors are constantly evolving their tactics to manipulate digital advertising in order to scam people and legitimate businesses alike. To counter these ever-shifting threats, we quickly updated policies, deployed rapid-response enforcement teams and sharpened our detection techniques.”

Google blocks 5.5 billion adverts, suspends 12.7 million accounts

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Mother kills daughters, commits suicide amid in-laws’ torture for not bearing son

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Sangita Yadav

Mother kills daughters, commits suicide amid in-laws’ torture for not bearing son

Two minor girls lost their lives after their mother killed them and hanged herself to death on Tuesday, as her her in-laws tortured her mentally due to her inability to bear a son in Bhopal. Tragically, the woman and two of her daughters have succumbed to the ordeal, while her three-year-old daughter fights for her life in the hospital.

The woman, identified as Sangita Yadav, was 28 years old, her daughters Aradhya was 5 years old, and Shristi was 2. The incident occurred in Roadiya village, located 35 kilometers from Bhopal in the Gunaga police station area. The matter came to light on Tuesday afternoon. The bodies of the victims were taken to Hamidia Hospital. According to Gunaga police station in-charge Arun Sharma, initial investigations suggest that the woman committed suicide and murdered her three daughters. However, further investigation is underway to confirm the circumstances.

According to Dainik Bhaskar, the deceased woman’s brother, Neeraj Yadav, has accused the in-laws of harassing his sister. Neeraj revealed that Sangita had sent distressing messages to him at night. In one of the messages, she stated that she was feeling unwell. She mentioned that she was taking poison as nobody would survive, and everyone would die.

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“Neeraj said, “After that, I tried calling her on her mobile phone, but I didn’t get any response. I also called Sangita’s brother-in-law, but he didn’t pick up the phone twice. When he finally answered the third time, I asked him if everything was fine at home. He said yes, everything was fine. I didn’t trust him.” Then, he asked his relatives, who stayed nearby, to go and check once. Thet reached and confirmed, that the bodies of all three kept inside.

Neeraj revealed that his sister was troubled by her in-laws. Whenever she visited her maternal home, Sangita’s husband, Rajat Yadav, would threaten her, saying, ‘If you don’t come back, I will die in an accident. I will electrocute myself.’ On March 4th, there was a wedding in the family, where they drank alcohol and created a ruckus. They took his sister back with them that night. After the wedding, everyone collectively harassed her, which left her distraught, leading her to hang herself along with her daughters.

The authenticity of the suicide note is questionable. Relatives alleged that when Sangita was found hanging, there was a letter stuck to her back, presumed to be a suicide note. In it, she purportedly wrote about a lump in her stomach preventing her from bearing more children and not being able to give birth to a son for her family. However, some family members directly denied the existence of any such letter. Nevertheless, according to the present police officers, a letter has been recovered from the scene.”

Mother kills daughters, commits suicide amid in-laws’ torture for not bearing son

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‘Fake pastor’ with at least 10 wives jailed for marrying two at same time

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Orlando Coleman

‘Fake pastor’ with at least 10 wives jailed for marrying two at same time

A fake pastor who had at least 10 wives has been thrown in jail after marrying two women.

Orlando Coleman trawled black churches across the US under the guise of a travelling bishop, collecting spouses as he went. The 51-year-old would introduce himself to new congregations as a member of the clergy, and was able to dupe at least 10 different women into exchanging vows with him.

Coleman from Houston had presented himself as the founder of several churches as well as a Pentecostal preacher on social media. Despite pleading guilty to bigamy in July 2023 and being placed on probation for marrying two women simultaneously, he wedded another woman two months later.

Now, he has been put behind bars for three years for marrying multiple women since 2019.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said: “At the heart of this repeat offender’s schemes was a plan to defraud women and take advantage of them for financial gain.

“This man used the church to camouflage his scams and hide from any accountability or responsibility.”

Coleman’s web of deceit started to unravel in 2021 when he married a woman in Houston, but his new wife saw he was receiving money from another woman in Virginia.

When his then current wife contacted the woman from Virginia it was revealed that she too was married to Coleman.

Coleman’s Houston wife then contacted the Harris County Sheriff’s Office with the revelation, who in turn launched an investigation and filed bigamy charges.

In July 2023, Coleman pleaded guilty to bigamy in exchange for three years of deferred adjudication probation.

However, just two months later, while still married to the woman in Virginia, Coleman tied the knot again with another woman in Kentucky, committing another offense of bigamy.

Upon learning about Coleman’s new marriage, prosecutors from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office moved to revoke his probation. In a hearing on March 11, a judge sentenced Coleman to three years in prison.

Prosecutors say Coleman married the women for housing and financial security.

After introducing himself as a Protestant pastor or bishop, Coleman would propose marriage.

If a woman accepted, he would move in with her and allow her to foot the cost of his housing and food.

“That’s the only thing he had to offer and to validate his word – the proposal to marry – that was something big,” Assistant District Attorney Vanessa Goussen told The New York Times.

“Getting proposed to was a big gesture for these women, and that corroborated his guise that he’s a godly person.”

Some of the women filed for divorce after Coleman fled to another state.

Coleman is currently being held at the Harris County Jail.

‘Fake pastor’ with at least 10 wives jailed for marrying two at same time

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